Syndication

Monday, February 09, 2009

About Obama

So, I watched a chunk of President Obama’s press conference tonight, and I had a few thoughts:

First, the man doesn’t seem to like Biden. Either that or his little joke about Biden’s quote wasn’t as funny as he thought it would be.

Second, he isn’t afraid of, ahem, disguising the truth a bit to further his own goals. That’s nothing unusual in a politician and certainly not in a politician at this level. It irritated me when he would talk of the mythical opposition who wanted to do nothing about the financial crisis, who wanted to test the new president’s boundaries instead of working with the Democrats, and who think that the only proper response to the crisis is more tax cuts for the rich (whoever we might be defining as rich at the particular moment). Outside of, say, Ron Paul, it would be hard as hell to find the Republican that he’s describing and doesn’t at all describe the Democrats who have come out against the package.

Third, an NPR reporter (didn’t catch her name) intimated that passing a three-quarter (plus) trillion dollar spending package should have been the easy part of his presidency. That was a surreal moment for me--in what world, in what time should it be easy to pass this spending package? Surreal, I tell you.

Fourth, Helen Thomas sounded like she’s edging toward senility. Tradition be damned, she hasn’t been meaningful as a journalist in years and she should retire. Continue writing from the sidelines if she’d like, but she doesn’t deserve to be one of the handful of reporters called on during these little bits of political theater. And that isn’t even addressing her “so-called terrorists” comment which President Obama answered well and, in a gratifying turn, refused to acknowledge her follow-up.

Fifth, why the hell is anyone asking questions about steroids in baseball? Is that even in the top 100 things that our new president needs to concern himself with? I’m pretty sure not.